Western governments assert that they are the key upholders of the world’s democratic values. However, their practice stands in complete contrast.
For instance, while Pakistan continues using Islamic terrorism as a strategic tool to further its own regional interests, the United States remains one of the largest sources of foreign direct investment in Pakistan and the country’s largest export market.
Furthermore, Pakistan is the largest beneficiary of the trading opportunities offered by the European Union's Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP). The EU is Pakistan’s second most important trading partner, which accounted for 12.4% of Pakistan’s total trade last year, representing approximately €12 billion.
This is all in spite of the Islamic terror groups that Pakistan has tolerated or supported. This groups include Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Harakat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), Hizb-il-Mujahideen (HM), the Mullah Nazir Group, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), as well as the Afghan Taliban and its affiliated Haqqani network. Today, Pakistan remains the terror hub of the world. See a full list of all terrorist groups in Pakistan.
However, Asim Munir, the chief of the Army Staff of the Pakistan Army, was recently hosted for a lunch meeting at White House by President Donald Trump. After hosting Munir, President Trump described him as a great man. Such a description conveniently forgets that the army and its generals have brought Pakistan to this present point of a failed state.
It was the Pakistani army and its generals who over the years have built and nurtured different terrorist groups in Pakistan, several of which find place in the hall of fame of UNSC1267 Sanctions Committee. The majority of murders of American and other Western nationals was committed by these groups. This includes the events of 9/11, killings in Afghanistan, as well as attacks in different Western cities.
The Pakistani Army is instrumental in thousands of cases of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary arrest in Baluchistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other parts of the country. It was Pakistani Army generals who on multiple occasions usurped the country’s civilian government and imposed marshal law.
Even today, Pakistan's government remains completely run by General Munir and his army with the elected civilian government relegated to the background for merely validating their actions.
Also, former Prime Minister Imran Khan is languishing in jail on flimsy grounds for speaking against the army and not buckling under their pressure.
Pakistan is not alone in this scenario. In Bangladesh, the democratically elected government of Sheikh Hasina was recently replaced by nominated ones of convenience. Earlier, in Afghanistan, the Ashraf Ghani government was pushed to the corner only to be replaced by the Taliban, which continues to be included on the Global Terrorist List.
The recent validation of Ahmed al-Sharaa/Al Jolani of Syria by the EU and the US government is another such case. Al-Sharaa is a militant Islamist and the self-ascribed "president" of Syria’s interim government after conquering Damascus in 2024 and toppling President Bashar al-Assad. Al-Sharaa commanded Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which was first formed as an affiliate of al-Qaeda. Because of that former association, Sharaa and HTS are designated as terrorists by several countries—including the United States, the United Kingdom, as well as the United Nations and the European Union. Yet, both US and EU officials have recently met with al-Sharaa, promising the lifting of sanctions and sending more financial aid to the country.
Pakistan has cooperated with terror groups in an attempt to erode the US interests and security in the region. Author Lawrence Wright writes,
In 1979, U.S. intelligence discovered that Pakistan was secretly building a uranium-enrichment facility in response to India’s nuclear-weapons program. That April, the military dictator of Pakistan, General Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq, hanged the civilian President he had expelled from office, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto; he then cancelled elections. U.S. aid came to a halt. At the same time, Zia began giving support to an Islamist organization, Jamaat-e-Islami, the forerunner of many more radical groups to come. In November, a mob of Jamaat followers, inflamed by a rumor that the U.S. and Israel were behind an attack on the Grand Mosque, in Mecca, burned the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad to the ground, killing two Americans and two Pakistani employees. The American romance with Pakistan was over, but the marriage was just about to begin.
Ever since, Pakistan has produced and enabled several terror groups worldwide through the enablement of the US government. According to Wright:
The military of Pakistan and the I.S.I. created and nurtured the very groups—such as the Taliban—that have turned against the Pakistani state. And the money used to fund these radical organizations came largely from American taxpayers.
Under Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, U.S. aid nearly quintupled: about three billion dollars in economic assistance and two billion in military aid. The Reagan Administration also provided three billion dollars to Afghan jihadis. These funds went through the sticky hands of the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, the spy branch of the Pakistani Army. Starting in 1987, the I.S.I. was headed by General Hamid Gul, a cunning and bitterly anti-American figure.
Starting in 1987, the I.S.I. was headed by General Hamid Gul, a cunning and bitterly anti-American figure… Gul helped oversee the creation of the Taliban, reportedly using mainly Saudi money. The I.S.I. openly supported the Taliban until September 11, 2001. Since then, the Pakistani government has disavowed the group, but it is widely believed that it still provides Taliban leaders with safe harbor in Quetta, where they stage jihad against Western forces in Afghanistan.
A number of investigative reports have suggested that the I.S.I. diverted American money designated for fighting terrorism to the Taliban. According to a 2007 document released by WikiLeaks, U.S. military interrogators at Guantánamo implicitly acknowledged this problem when they placed the I.S.I. on an internal list of 'terrorist and terrorist-support entities.'
Meanwhile, Pakistani nationals have for many years plotted terror activities against America. In September 2024, for instance, the Pakistani national, Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, a/k/a “Shahzeb Jadoon,” attempted to enter the United States to carry out a mass shooting at a Jewish Center in New York City. The US State Department reported that Khan had "planned a terrorist attack in New York City around October 7th of this year with the stated goal of slaughtering, in the name of ISIS, as many Jewish people as possible."
Pakistan has also been averse to Israel, joining hands with Hamas and Hezbollah. Ties between Hamas and Pakistan’s intelligence agencies have grown substantially since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. These attacks garnered significant attention from Islamists and motivated international terror groups to show their solidarity. For example, the Pakistani military met with a delegation of Hamas leaders, including Zaheer Naji and spokesman Khaled Qaddoumi. Together they attended February’s “Kashmir solidarity day, Hamas operation Al-Aqsa flood conference.”
Pakistan also shelters al-Qaeda. A 2012 NATO study based on 27,000 interrogations of 4,000 captured Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters concluded that the ISI (Pakistan's intelligence agency) provided safe havens to the Taliban, monitored their movements, manipulated their fighters, and arrested those thought to be uncooperative. Al-Qaeda is widely believed to maintain camps in western Pakistan where foreign extremists receive training in terrorist operations.
Al-Qaeda set up training camps and provided military and intelligence instruction in such areas as Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Sudan. Under its founder's Usama bin Laden’s direction, al-Qaeda launched attacks and bombings in various nations to further its jihadist aims.
Pakistan has also duped the US in Afghanistan by joining hands with the Taliban. As Human Rights Watch reported in 2001:
The Pakistan government has repeatedly denied that it provides any military support to the Taliban in its diplomacy regarding its extensive operations in Afghanistan. Of all the foreign powers involved in efforts to sustain and manipulate the ongoing fighting, Pakistan is distinguished both by the sweep of its objectives and the scale of its efforts, which include soliciting funding for the Taliban, bankrolling Taliban operations, providing diplomatic support as the Taliban's virtual emissaries abroad, arranging training for Taliban fighters, recruiting skilled and unskilled manpower to serve in Taliban armies, planning and directing offensives, providing and facilitating shipments of ammunition and fuel, and on several occasions apparently directly providing combat support.
In line with the same pro-jihad ideology, Pakistan has recently announced an upgrade in its diplomatic relations with Afghanistan under the Taliban regime. The country plans to designate an ambassador to Afghanistan, marking the first such appointment since Kabul fell to the Taliban in August 2021. As Wright notes:
Pakistan is one of the most anti-American countries in the world, and a covert sponsor of terrorism. Politically and economically, it verges on being a failed state. And, despite Pakistani avowals to the contrary, America’s worst enemy, Osama bin Laden, had been hiding there for years—in strikingly comfortable circumstances—before U.S. commandos finally tracked him down and killed him, on May 2nd.
The Pakistani military has supported or cooperated with many terror groups including the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Based on what logic or motive has the US government been complicit in Pakistan's activities while claiming to engage in a war on terror?
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